As some of you may know, I work from home most the time. I only have to commute into cesspool city once a week, and for that I am grateful every day.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have shit to complain about on that one day, though.

Significant Other and I normally catch the same train home, which leaves the station a little before 5pm. Recently, the company that runs the trains has instituted a quiet car during commuting hours in the morning and evening on weekdays. It’s only ONE CAR out of the five or six that make up the trains at this time. ONE CAR. And usually the conductor will announce it, but it’s always the same: the first car when heading in to work in the morning, and the last car when heading out in the evening. IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO REMEMBER. Especially if you ride the same damn train and sit in the same damn seat every day.

But for some reason, on the train SO and I usually catch, there is a group of teenagers stuck in adult bodies who act like they’re still in goddamned high school. You know the people: they always have to sit in the same seats, they have to save seats for their friends, they will talk THE WHOLE HOUR RIDE HOME, and the rules do not apply to them. If I described that, would you not assume these were teenagers with no regard for others? But no; all of these people are old enough to be my fucking parents.

There is only one fucking quiet car on the train, and I like to sleep on the ride to/from work, because I’m a tired Anger Ball from raging all day. Now, the quiet car is supposed to allow for people to talk, QUIETLY (sensing a theme yet?), but nobody seems to have an indoor voice on this train. SO and I have sometimes caught the train after this one, or even the train AFTER that one, and nobody on those trains seems to have this goddamn problem. Everyone on those trains is quiet or able to talk in a whisper.

NOT THESE ASSHOLES, THOUGH. I know EVERYTHING about their fucking lives. Things that I never needed or wanted to know about ANYBODY. Breaking news: There are at LEAST four other cars you can sit in if you want to talk. GO TO ONE OF THEM, BEFORE I THROW YOU ONTO THE TRACKS.

The worst part is that if SO or I try to get the conductor involved, these people just up their teenage antics. They see us talking to the conductor or calling him/her over, and they immediately shut the fuck up. Then the conductor looks at me like I’m fucking crazy, maybe repeats the announcement that it’s the quiet car, and leaves. THEN THESE ASSHOLES START TALKING AGAIN.

Oh, and apparently sitting right next to the person you want to talk to automatically makes you gay with them or something, because these assholes sit across the aisle from one another, which means they have to talk louder to have a normal conversation.

I’m sorry, but in the fucking quiet car I should not hear your conversation over the noise of the train moving. THAT IS NOT WHAT THE QUIET CAR IS FOR. Let the people who want ACTUAL QUIET enjoy the goddamned quiet car. Don’t just continue sitting in it because those are your seats or some shit. Breaking news: We’re not in high school; there are no fucking assigned seats. GO. SOMEPLACE. ELSE.

The other thing is that on this train, there are about three stops before the first major stop, where most people, including SO and I, disembark. These assholes also get off at that stop. The moment we pull out of the station before our stop, they all stand up, and for some reason decide it’s no longer the quiet car at all. People come up from further back to stand and wait by the door and are talking to people sitting four rows away, over the tops of people who ARE STILL SLEEPING OR TRYING TO READ. BECAUSE THEIR STOP IS NOT THE NEXT ONE. I don’t know, as far as I fucking understand it, the quiet car rules are not “only if the train is in motion” or “only when you feel like being quiet”. THEY ARE FOR THE WHOLE FUCKING TRIP. SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTHS FOR TEN SECONDS. Just because your stop is next doesn’t mean it stops being the quiet car.

I’ve never seen a bunch of adults act so consistently like children. I mean, this happens every goddamned week. The people who appear to have assigned seats (I roll my eyes every time I type that, but it’s true; they sit in the same place every day and save seats for their friends. I want to barf just thinking about it) are generally tolerable, which means I can sleep through their incessant chatter. But the other day there was some asshole talking loudly on his cell phone, although luckily after an announcement from the conductor he put that shit away. I haven’t confronted anyone yet about their intolerable noise, but only because by the end of the day (we don’t have this problem in the morning when everyone is so tired they pass the fuck out) I’m so fucking frustrated from work that I’m worried I won’t be able to control my rage and ask politely but sternly. I’m worried I’ll just curl my hand into a fist and beat all these people to death. So generally I just simmer in my rage until I pass out from exhaustion and wake up just before our stop.

HOWEVER.

That does not make this shit okay, and, as with the movie theater and cell phone use thing, where I hit my limit and now I ask people immediately to put their phones away instead of giving them three strikes, I feel that I’m reaching the breaking point with this, too. The problem, though, is that the noise level is relative to where you are to the people talking. If they’re sitting behind you, they’re going to sound louder than people sitting eight rows away, even if both are speaking at the same volume. So my problem is if I want to tell one pair of assholes to shut up, suddenly I have to get up and tell forty pairs of assholes to shut up, because everyone in that car for the most part is a goddamned child who will say, “Why are you yelling at me when 38750398461 other people are talking?” Well, asshole, if you’re sitting right behind me, I can hear every detail of your pathetic life, whereas I cannot hear all the inane details of the conversation in the back of the train. THIS SEEMS OBVIOUS TO ME, but people are selfish assholes who can’t think of other people for ten goddamned seconds.

Frankly, what the trains SHOULD do is make the quiet car completely quiet. No talking at all, no cell phones at all, nothing. COMPLETE SILENCE. I’m blissing out just imagining this right now. If there are FOUR (or more) other cars in which to talk, at any volume you wish, why can’t we have one for the actual adults who don’t have problems keeping their mouths shut for an hour? Let me tell you, the quiet car is ALWAYS full, too. I’m sure it would be full even if they changed the rule to complete silence. And everyone in that car would be a lot fucking happier if that were the case.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from adults. I mean, I can sit still for a long time, and I don’t have to fill silence with bullshit. But apparently few others are capable of this. I mean, these people who talk for the whole train ride aren’t ever talking about anything interesting or important. Now, look. I don’t think every single conversation has to be profound. But if you’re going to talk for an hour in the quiet car of a train, it better be fucking worthwhile and interesting, because EVERYONE IS GOING TO HEAR IT. I don’t want to hear about your kid’s little league game. I bet your fucking friend doesn’t even really want to hear about it. So shut the fuck up.

But it just blows my mind because it’s not like the entire train is a quiet train. It’s just one fucking car. And yet these people are so oblivious or inconsiderate that they just continue to do this shit every day instead of moving to another car to have their vapid conversations. Like…I just can’t wrap my brain around being that big an asshole.

You would think I’d be used to this shit by now. But people just find new ways to be bigger and bigger assholes every day. I guess once I reach my limit and snap at them all, maybe I’ll finally get a fucking hour of peace and quiet. But more likely, since their maturity level is that of teenagers, I’ll just have to deal with passive-aggressive bullshit instead. Hooray, something else to look forward to!

Since we moved out of cesspool city, Significant Other now has to commute every day for work. There is a bus nearby, but the tickets are kind of outrageous, so in the morning I drive her to the train (so we don’t have to pay parking, although with gas prices what they are it might be cheaper now), and I pick her up in the evening.

We have a pretty good system down for the most part. In the evening I get to the train station about 5-10 minutes before the train. I don’t park in a spot; there is enough space near the train platform for cars to wait near the curb and still allow other cars to pass by. That’s important because once people get off the train, cars are zipping past to exit the parking lot, and you never know when the person you’re waiting for will appear. So if you have two brain cells to rub together, you know you don’t want to block the aisle and cause a traffic jam if you’re not one of the first cars to leave.

On a normal day, it will look something like this:

What the parking lot looks like when everyone is intelligent.

Here’s a legend: the ovals are cars waiting, the rest is the parking lot, with driving aisles marked by the arrows. Each aisle of parked cars in the lot is buffered by a giant planter with little trees in it, and people often park in front of those. Even with cars on either side of the aisle in this way, there is plenty of space for other cars to drive through. IT IS HARMONIOUS WHEN EVERYONE IS INTELLIGENT. We wait for our friends/significant others to get off the train and then we all drive off into the sunset happy as can be because nobody was a dumbass.

However, that situation is rare, really. Because now that it’s cold and dark when we’re all waiting at the train station at 5:45, people will often leave their cars running as they wait. I can sympathize, because it can get pretty fucking cold. But these assholes will also LEAVE THEIR HEADLIGHTS ON, which is not fucking necessary. Ever.

If I weren't blinded by your headlights, I would be giving you a dirty look.

You don’t need to illuminate the parking lot or the car in front of you or shine your obnoxious lights into my eyes for 10 minutes while we wait for the train. The parking lot already has lights. If there are any monsters or serial killers, you will see them coming. And the odds of them going after your car when they have so many others to choose from is pretty slim, anyway. JUST TURN YOUR FUCKING HEADLIGHTS OFF. I don’t know if people just don’t understand how cars work or what. Breaking news: You can keep your car running in order to stay warm and TURN THE HEADLIGHTS OFF at the same time. Amazing!

But even this qualifies as a minor annoyance. I can usually shift in the driver’s seat somehow so that I’m not blinded by the headlights, and I only have to wait for Significant Other for about 10 minutes, and then we can leave the idiots behind. And since I spend most of my days away from people now, I can put up with this minor annoyance even if it happens every day without blowing a gasket that often.

However, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I encountered a driver so idiotic that I had to document it here. I still think about it sometimes and it’s been like three weeks. This person clearly did not have two brain cells to rub together and should under no circumstances be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

SO’s office closed early on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but I’m pretty sure so did everyone else’s, so I was expecting the train station to be crowded with cars when I got there, because it’s not only commuters but people who are traveling for the holiday. So when I pulled up for the 5:10 train, the parking lot was full, and there was a line of cars waiting at the curb and well into the first aisle.

This is the beginning of the idiocy.

As you can see in my beautifully illustrated depiction of this event, I decided I didn’t want to be waiting for SO halfway down the first aisle where she would never see me. So I decided to back up and go down a different aisle so I could park on the curb in front of the front car, where there was still plenty of space and I wouldn’t cause a ridiculous and unnecessary traffic jam.

It's too bad only ideas, and not the intelligence required to execute those ideas, are contagious.

Unfortunately, the SUV I was momentarily stuck behind in the first aisle thought my idea was BRILLIANT. Which…in and of itself isn’t a terrible thing; it was a pretty good idea. This way my car would be visible to SO and I wouldn’t be preventing people from backing out of their parking spots. BECAUSE SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND NOT INCONVENIENCING THEM. The problem, as you can guess from the caption, is that the driver of this dumb SUV apparently didn’t realize why I had moved. This was what their brain came up with:

That is a terrible idea, asshole.

Clearly my wonderful illustrations aren’t to scale, but I made sure to do it in such a way that you can easily see that by parking where they did, the SUV blocked the way for any cars that might need to get through. And since there were still 10 minutes for the train, there were still other cars coming to wait for passengers. I don’t know what this asshole was thinking. It hurts my brain to even try and rationalize this decision. Why didn’t they just pull the rest of the way up to be in front of the planter, like a semi-intelligent person would do, thus freeing the aisle? Maybe they just wanted to be close to me again (maybe my intelligence attracted them like a moth to a light). Talk about taking a pretty good idea and fucking ruining it with ignorance. This is a perfect example. I had two reasons, already outlined, for choosing to move my car. This person clearly only had ONE reason: they wanted to make sure they would be seen by whomever they were waiting for. I mean, you have to be pretty fucking oblivious to not think “Gee, I’m in a parking lot. Maybe I shouldn’t block the way out with my PARKED CAR.”

The way this person parked, I could easily make eye contact, and you better believe that I did. I looked right at them and mouthed “What the hell are you doing?” before I started my car and moved it forward until there would be a way for a moving car to navigate around the two of us. BUT THAT SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN NECESSARY. If this person had fucking thought about someone other than themselves, they would have realized they had just made one of the stupidest decisions anyone on the planet has ever made. Even thinking back on it now and looking at my fairly accurate illustration of the event is making me have conniptions and killing precious brain cells.

And let me tell you, the person this driver was waiting for, unsurprisingly, was NOT the first person off the train. Luckily there are numerous aisles for exiting, but that still doesn’t excuse or justify being a fucking dumbass and blocking a potential exit route. And I’m not talking about how it might be dangerous if there’s an emergency or something. I’m just talking about common fucking courtesy. It just makes it easier for everyone if every possible exit route is available, especially with the number of cars that need to get to the highway from the parking lot. So take your fucking head our of your ass and realize that your stupidity is causing a problem.

Of all the stupid things I’ve seen people do in parking lots, this is by far the most egregious. Hopefully I never run into this person again. If I do, I’ll be sure to keep all my decent ideas to myself so they aren’t tempted to ruin them with their blatant idiocy.

…for stupidity. This way I can tell without even meeting someone if they are, or are related to, a moron. Gauging intelligence is just about the only benefit that bumper stickers offer. And let me tell you, from reading some of the bumper stickers on the cars in this area, I’ve discovered that Significant Other and I unwittingly moved to Conservative Crazypants town. Hooray for us.

I’m just going to go one by one in convenient list form to avoid getting so worked up that my brain explodes. I’ve linked to images below, but they are not necessarily the exact bumper sticker I saw, although the phrase is exactly as I saw it (I may or may not have copied them down the minute I saw them. I ADMIT NOTHING).

Significant Other can attest to the fit I threw when I saw this bumper sticker. This is just one of the most asinine things to come out of public discourse in years. It ties into my pet peeve of people in a majority acting like they’re persecuted. Breaking news: If you’re in the majority, you cannot be ostracized. It doesn’t work that way. So, Christians, sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody is trying to take “Christ” out of “Christmas.”

FIRST OF ALL, he wasn’t in Christmas to begin with. Let’s be serious here, okay? The only assholes who don’t know by now that “Christmas” used to be a Pagan holiday that was appropriated by the Christians are just in denial. So you can’t really take something out that wasn’t there to begin with. But for centuries now, Christmas has been what it is currently (maybe not with the crazy gift giving, but with the Christian religion, I mean), so even if we’re throwing the appropriation factor aside, there are still other issues.

SECOND, nobody is trying to take “Christ” out of “Christmas.” If my memory serves me right, this fucking hoopla started when people wanted to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” to be all inclusive and not assume that the person they’re talking to is a fucking Christian. BUT FOR SOME REASON BEING INCLUSIVE IS A TERRIBLE THING! May we be struck down if we want to acknowledge the fact that there are other holidays that occur near the end of December! IT MEANS WE ARE TRYING TO PERSECUTE CHRISTIANS!

Okay, read that paragraph again and then try to explain how it makes sense. You won’t be able to, because it DOESN’T. Trying to be all inclusive is just that—INCLUDING EVERYONE. “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” ENCOMPASSES ALL THE FUCKING HOLIDAYS, ASSHOLES. THAT MEANS CHRISTMAS TOO. So take your “Keep Christ in Christmas” bullshit and shove it, because it’s ridiculous.

THIRD, and last on this topic so I can get through the other bumper stickers before I have an aneurysm, the people who want to say “Happy Holidays” in a department store just want people to have a happy fucking holiday regardless of their religion. Nobody is trying to remove the Christian religion from the sentiment of their version of Christmas. I never see bumper stickers that say “Keep Christ Out of Christmas.” It’s a non-issue. NOBODY IS FUCKING WITH YOUR HOLIDAY, OKAY? SO STOP ACTING LIKE THAT’S WHAT’S GOING ON. In other words, get the fuck over yourselves.

Ugh, this one. THIS ONE. I haven’t gotten around to writing my rant about abortion rights, but I’ll give you the short of it up front: I am pro-choice. Anyone who is not pro-choice is ANTI-CHOICE. They are not pro-life. If you’re pro-life, that should mean you are pro-letting people do whatever they want with their lives, meaning other people can get abortions if they want. But if you are anti-abortion, you are ANTI-CHOICE. You are trying to restrict other people’s lives and choices.

Now that we’re clear on terminology, this bumper sticker boils my blood. Mostly because the people who want to “protect the unborn” don’t give a shit about the billions of people who are already on the planet. Protect that lump of cells in some random woman’s uterus, but don’t provide universal health care or expand welfare or unemployment! Don’t help people who had that baby actually take care of it! These assholes don’t give two shits about the already born. They just care about imposing their personal beliefs on everyone else. Breaking news: Just because abortion is an option doesn’t mean you need to choose it. But it means that someone else can choose it if they want! FANCY THAT.

I’m a big fan of the “it’s none of your damn business” concept. It’s none of my fucking business who gets abortions. It’s not going to affect me or my life, but it may help improve the life of the woman getting an abortion. So it really pisses me off when people try to stick their nose into someone else’s business pretending to be all concerned about health or safety or whatever, when really they are just self-righteous assholes who can’t stand the idea of someone else, anywhere, doing something they don’t like.

And I’m sorry (no I’m not) if I think the life of the already-existing woman is more important than the current non-life of her (not a person yet, sorry folks) fetus. I’m sorry (again, no) if I think that a woman shouldn’t be punished for having sex by having to birth a child. I’m sorry (getting the sarcasm point now, I hope?) if I think women should have complete control over their reproductive health and use of their reproductive organs. I’m sorry that I don’t think there should be a law that interferes with women making their own decisions.

Breaking news: Women are completely capable of making their own decisions and weighing their own pros and cons in any situation, including when considering abortion. And one woman’s pro and con list will differ from another’s! GO FIGURE; WOMEN ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS.

So fuck off with your “Protect the Unborn” shit. Let’s first take care of the teeming mass of people already on the planet, and then we’ll talk. We’re not in danger of going extinct of our own volition any time soon.

HOORAY FOR YOU; WOULD YOU LIKE A COOKIE? So what media do you believe, then? Because I was ALWAYS taught that taking everything I see on any news channel or in any newspaper at face value is AN EXCELLENT IDEA! So do you believe everything Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly spout out of their putrid mouths? THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT PLAN.

Look. I’m not going to argue if the media is liberal or conservative, because it’s a futile argument that cannot be won. If you watch a news program and a comment is made you don’t agree with, you’re going to call them the opposite of what you are. Ideally the news would be fair and balanced, but anyone with half a brain knows that’s not true no matter WHAT program you’re watching. But taking what pundits say at face value without doing your own research and investigating to form your own opinion is just idiotic. Breaking news: Use your own fucking brain to form your own fucking opinions. CRAZY, I KNOW. Because pundits are paid to get ratings and cause drama, basically, and spout their own opinions. And a lot of them have opinions that aren’t based on facts or logic. And then that idiocy spreads like wildfire and people like me with an iota of intelligence are left to weep in the corner.

So while I think saying the media is “liberal” is just laughable, my real problem is that the people who would put that bumper sticker on their car obviously didn’t think twice before doing so. Because guess what? FOX news, Glenn Beck et al., are PART OF THE MEDIA. So how can “the media” be “liberal” if THESE KNOWN CONSERVATIVE PEOPLE/STATIONS EXIST. Just…just something to consider, there. It’s not like FOX is an underground, unpopular station. It’s one of the highest-rated news stations lately. So, uh…hm. How can I put this politely? Your fucking logic fail is showing.

Boo hoo. You like to enjoy things like libraries and highways and public education and the fire department, but you don’t want to pay your damn taxes in order to get these public services. Woe is you! Your life is so hard! You have to pay taxes like every other fucking adult in America!

Suck it up, asshole. Pretty much by the time I was 12, before I even had a job, I knew that taxes existed and that someday I would have to pay them. Nobody LIKES to pay taxes, but some of us understand it’s a necessary evil. Because while I hope I never need my local fire department, I sure as hell want them available to me if I do. Or the police, for that matter. And I went through public school and came out just fine (not to say improvements couldn’t be made). And I like having libraries and paved roads. And I don’t mind paying a school tax even though I don’t have children. HOLY HELL, I MUST BE A SOCIALIST BECAUSE I DON’T WHINE AND COMPLAIN ABOUT A REALLY VERY TINY FRACTION OF MY PAYCHECK BEING USED TO BENEFIT SOCIETY. BURN ME AT THE STAKE IMMEDIATELY!

People who complain about taxes are immature assholes who have no idea how any level of government works. If we took away everything that taxes pay for, these assholes would be the first to complain about the disrepair of all the roads or that they can’t afford to send their kids to a fancy private school and there’s no public option available. Part of being an adult is paying taxes. And America’s tax rates aren’t the worst in the world. Why don’t you complain about politicians who waste the tax money on vacations or private jets instead? Maybe if they didn’t guzzle this “free money” down, it could be used to improve things that really need it, like education. STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THE WRONG ISSUE, ASSHOLES. ARGH. Taxes do SO MUCH to make our lives easier, and people would rather whine about it than use their brains to think about it. And the only thing that makes something bad worse is when people complain incessantly about it. It’s like being stuck at the airport security line behind the guy who has to complain THE WHOLE TIME about how inconvenient it is to have to take off his shoes. Yeah, we all know it’s inconvenient. But your complaining DOES NOT HELP.

Breaking news: Everyone thinks taxes, in general, suck. But they are necessary (no, really), so the fucking mature adults among us have learned to let it go. If you value your life, you will stop complaining about taxes, because I have about reached my limit when it comes to hearing (or reading) people complain about this. Do a little research into what your fucking taxes pay for, and then think how often you or someone you’re related to or someone you don’t know uses and benefits from those services, and then think how much harder everyone’s life would be without them.

If your brain survives that little mental exercise of THINKING ABOUT SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF FOR TEN SECONDS, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE LEARNED HOW TO THINK LIKE AN ADULT.

This morning, driving home from dropping Significant Other off at the train, I saw a dead bear that had been hit by a car.

It was a giant fucking bear, and seeing it made me angry.

On the way home from picking SO up from the train, I saw young kids being allowed to play near the side of the street. Their mother was right there, and the kids were about half an inch from actually being in the street, and yet the mother didn’t seem to give two shits. This also made me angry.

One of these things knows better than to play in the street, and yet if you hit it you go to jail. The other has no fucking idea what’s going on, and if you hit it and your car still works, you can just go along on your merry way. Not to mention that there are way more people on the planet than bears of any type. Now, I’m not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination. But it doesn’t mean I like watching animals die and it doesn’t mean I enjoy the sight of roadkill or that I like destroying habitats, etc., etc. I like eating meat, and I like animals. I suffer no cognitive dissonance. If you think that’s impossible, just stop reading right now.

But back to the point of this post. I think we need to make a new rule and that is: either anything in the street is fair game or nothing is. We all think we’re so fucking special because we’re capable of higher thought, and everyone thinks they or their children are super special geniuses who are going to find the cure for cancer and save the world. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now, and probably in the future: the odds are against you. There are 6 billion people on this poor, poor planet. There are significantly less of every animal species I can think of. So maybe instead of mowing them down with our cars, we should be a little more fucking careful. After all, we’re the ones who took over their fucking habitat and they’re the ones that are confused by what’s going on.

And you know if a new species evolved, a species more intelligent than even the smartest human, we would be enraged when they started running us down with their flying cars and jet packs and knocking our houses down to build whatever the fuck they wanted. How unfair! We were here first! We might even try to rebel, but their superiority in every way would assure our inferiority. It’s OK to destroy everything with complete abandon when we’re the superior ones, but if we’re not anymore, I bet we wouldn’t like this policy so much. Breaking news: That’s pretty much the epitome of a hypocrite.

Now, the evolution of a new superspecies is unlikely to happen before a catastrophic event just wipes out everything on the planet anyway, but my point still stands. Maybe bears and other animals aren’t capable of higher thought, but I bet they’re real confused when they wander to a place that used to have trees and wildlife and see bright lights and pavement instead.

But if I wanted to, I could plow that bear down with my gas-guzzling SUV* and just keep on keepin’ on. But if I hit a person, oh HELL no. Even if that asshole was drunk and meandering in an unpredictable way, I’d still be held responsible for my actions. Which is fine; people SHOULD be held responsible for their actions. This includes idiot mothers who let their children play by the road when there’s a big fucking open green space ten feet away. I believe in natural selection. I think if you’re that stupid, maybe you shouldn’t be breeding. So yeah, maybe the bear did deserve to be hit by a car because it wandered into the highway, but if a human is capable of higher thought, why shouldn’t one who’s dumb enough to wander onto the highway suffer the same fate? Or, in the case of young children who really DON’T know any better yet, maybe their parents should be held responsible? For once? I know, I know, I’m crazy for even suggesting it!**

That’s my point. We all think we’re so fucking wonderful because of higher thought, and yet a majority of the people I see every fucking day don’t seem to want to use that capability. So what makes those assholes better than animals, again? And maybe we should use that higher thought to display a little compassion to things that are “lesser.”

I’ll take a giant, scary, rampaging bear over any stranger I see any day of the week. At least if I do something stupid in front of it, the bear will put me out of my misery and go on its merry way.

*I don’t actually drive an SUV.

**I’m not talking about the situations where the driver is clearly in the wrong (running red lights, speeding, drunk driving, etc.). Right now I’m just discussing situations like when idiot parents let their kids play near the road and don’t watch them, and other moronic things people do expecting others to make up for their stupidity.

If there is one thing I’ve gotten sick of quickly since living in the suburbs, it is people who think their time is more important than everyone else’s.

I mostly see this while I’m driving, but I also see it at stores or when I’m catching the train to or from cesspool city. In other words: I see it everywhere, and I am fucking over it. It annoys me the most when I’m driving because that’s where it’s most dangerous.

I have seen people do the dumbest shit ever recently, including someone trying to drive between the lanes on a two-lane highway when the cars in both the fast and slow lane were going too slow for their tastes. Luckily since this asshole was in a giant SUV (sorry, I have never met an asshole who didn’t drive an SUV. Just saying), their car couldn’t actually fit between the lanes and thus they had to pick one like the rest of us mortals. But can you even wrap your mind around that? Someone was trying to drive in the space that’s left between the cars in either lane. That space is barely big enough for a motorcycle on the BEST days. That’s even worse than trying to use the shoulder as a passing lane. What the fuck were they thinking?

I can tell you exactly what they were fucking thinking. They were thinking their time is way more important than everyone else’s. That they deserve to get to their destination faster than the rest of us because they are obviously the most important person on the planet. And they certainly don’t have time to waste being stuck in traffic like the rest of us!

Fuck you. I don’t want to die because you don’t give a shit about anyone other than yourself. Because all it takes is one minor distraction while you’re pulling a stupid stunt like that, and suddenly my car is totaled and I’m in the ICU. Well, you can forget that shit. Look, I want to get where I’m going too. We all do. But it’s assholes like YOU that ruin it for the rest of us by doing this stupid shit, then getting in an accident and causing massive traffic. So cut it out.

Now granted, this incident didn’t happen directly to me; I just saw it. But I’ve had plenty of similar things happen. I’ve had people try to pass me at the last minute before their exit and then have to cut in front of me so suddenly in order to make it that I have to slam on my brakes. Really, asshole? You couldn’t wait a whole five seconds for the exit ramp to come up and just use it from the slow lane like everyone else? You had to almost kill me just to get around me and exit two second earlier? I hope every fucking light you encounter for the rest of your life is the longest red light ever.

I also had two similar incidents happen in the same day NOT on the highway. For the first, I was stopped at a light waiting to make a right (no turn on red, boo). The light turned green, and I’m making the right, when the person across the intersection from me blasts forward and makes a left, cutting me off and almost hitting me just to…be ahead of me at the next red light. Really, asshole? I was the only one making a right at the time, so it’s not like you would have had to wait much longer to make your turn. But no, you almost had to smash into my car because you’re fucking impatient. Breaking news: You’re not the most important person in the world. Get the fuck over it. Also, just for future reference, I had the fucking right of way, so if there HAD been an accident, you would have paid for everything. Luckily I already don’t trust anyone, so I was prepared for you to do something heinously stupid.

The other incident that happened the same day was after picking Significant Other up from work. We were coming up on a red light, so I was slowing down (I must be crazy, since I prefer to come to a slow stop instead of blazing up to the stoplight and then slamming on my brakes to just barely avoid hitting the car(s) in front of me!). I was going to pull into the left lane when I came up on it in order to make a left a the light. The guy BEHIND ME comes racing up and then tries to get into the left lane first when there was no left lane yet. He was riding on the double yellow line! Then I signal and move over, and he almost rear-ends me. Breaking news: Sorry asshole, but you were the one breaking the law. What possesses these people to do not only stupid but also obviously dangerous things? You can’t get into a lane that DOESN’T EXIST. And the light is RED, so what good does it do you to race ahead? Fuck off.

The only benefit was that I got to watch through my rear-view mirror as he ranted about me. To himself, since there was no one else in his car. Complete with gesticulating. It was kind of hysterical. But it doesn’t excuse his fucking poor decision-making skills. I’ve ranted about road etiquette before, but as long as people are going the speed limit and following traffic laws, they will be safe from my wrath. This shit is just ridiculously stupid.

But it isn’t just for people driving, oh no. The other day, catching my connecting train from here to cesspool city, coming down the escalator, some guy steps all over me and practically shoves me out of the way to catch the train. Let me clarify how fucking stupid and unnecessary this was: Connecting trains in that direction run every five minutes during rush hour. What the fuck, dude? I need to get to work just as badly as you do, and yet I am not stepping on people and shoving them out of my way. Get the fuck over yourself and learn a little bit of patience.

So I’m fucking sick of being almost killed on the road and crushed underfoot as a pedestrian. Everyone needs to get a damn grip on themselves. You are not so important that if you accidentally kill someone in a car crash, you won’t suffer repercussions. Is getting to the stop light ten seconds before me really worth risking your life and the lives of the people in the cars around you? Is catching the train five minutes before me really worth shoving me out of the way and knocking into people? Maybe you should try leaving your house five minutes earlier so you don’t have to fucking rush around like nobody else matters.

There are over 6 billion people on the planet. I don’t know why you think you’re the most special and important of them all, because the odds are not in your favor. So take a deep fucking breath, because your time is not more important than someone else’s life.

There is nothing more frustrating than people who overreact to things. Now, you might find this statement funny because in my blog posts I often seem to be overreacting. The difference is that I don’t say anything at the time because I know my reaction is overstated. So I come home and try to make my neuroses funny for the Internet.

I’m talking about people who overreact and don’t realize it or don’t care. It is only made worse when that person is also an asshole. Significant Other and I just had an encounter with someone who fits this description, and it was a police officer. We didn’t get a ticket (don’t worry, I’m about to recount the whole fucking story), but when the person overreacting has a certain amount of power or leverage over you, that makes the situation about a billion times worse because you can’t tell them they’re being stupid. Let’s just say that Significant Other and I were lucky she was driving, because I would have told this cop to fuck off, and he would have found a reason to give me a ticket. (Actually, I decided I would have said to him “Well, I used to have a lot of respect for police officers,” which I guess is better in that it contains no curse words but worse because…well, that’s obvious.)

We were driving in the area we just moved to, actually on our way to sign our lives away for the place we just purchased, and we were on some back road (using our GPS to boot because neither of us is very familiar with this area yet). Ahead of us, we saw some cop cars (about five) on either side of the road and a car pulled over with a trailer attached to it. Two cops were standing on the double yellow lines, with a traffic cone on either side of them. Significant Other slowed the car down to about ten miles under the speed limit as we approached, unsure of what was going on or what to do. But neither of the two cops tried to hail us or give us any direction, so we just kept going. As we passed the second officer, he flagged us down abruptly. Significant Other slammed on the brakes and a huge, old computer monitor in our back seat flew forward and hit me in the elbow (so you know that made me fucking cranky before the cop even came over).

The cop then came over to the car and started yelling at us. “I think it’s funny that you have a bumper sticker that says you support organ donation and you come flying through a checkpoint and almost hit me!” Uh, excuse me? Significant Other tried explaining that we’ve never seen a checkpoint before and had no idea what was going on. Let me also repeat that we were going WELL UNDER the speed limit, so we were not “flying” anywhere, and he also had no radar gun to even be able to make this statement legitimately. OVERREACTION. Remember that up until a few days ago, Significant Other and I lived in a fucking terrible city where we took public transportation, so it’s true that neither of us has ever seen a checkpoint.

But, hello, shouldn’t one of the cops have been directing cars or making eye contact or at least somehow signaling that we should be going a certain speed and expect to stop? There were NO SIGNS or ANYTHING. We thought it might have been a car accident, which was why we slowed but did not stop. And then this fucking asshole cop comes over and immediately starts yelling at us and saying how we almost hit him and he could have DIED and he takes his safety very seriously and we were SO RECKLESS. He was by far the rudest police officer I’ve ever met on top of the fact that he was flying off the handle for no fucking reason. We did not come close to hitting him, and maybe if he had been doing his job instead of chatting with his buddy while standing in the middle of the road, I wouldn’t have a giant fucking bruise on my elbow right now (funny how he raged about “almost dying” but I’m the one who came out of the situation with physical damage. Who has the right to be more pissed here?). But my problem really was that he started off yelling at us and making snarky comments about our bumper sticker. We didn’t provoke him. The minute our window rolled down, out he came with the raised voice and the insults. He should have taken a deep fucking breath first because his brain clearly needed the extra oxygen to figure out he was being a dick.

He then said that if either of us had a problem with the way he was addressing us, we could take down his name and badge number. Isn’t that funny? Because we all know he would have given us a fucking ticket for some dumb reason had either of us said we were going to file a complaint. Who the hell did he think he was kidding with that peace offering? I do wish now that I had taken his information down, because I would LOVE to file a complaint against this asshole, but I think it’s better that I didn’t. But that also let me know that he knew he was being an overreacting asshole and he just continued on with it. File that under “doesn’t care that he’s an asshole,” which is by far the worst category.

I’ve been stewing about that encounter ever since, as you can imagine. I thought he was going to ticket us, because no matter how many times Significant Other tried to tell this asshole that we had never been through a checkpoint before and didn’t know what to do, he just kept talking over her and basically calling us reckless morons.

Look. I know law enforcement is a dangerous job. But why don’t you go fucking yell at the guys with illegal guns who shoot police officers instead of two people going through an unmarked checkpoint attended by two apparently incompetent police officers? All it would have taken was eye contact and some sort of hand signal to indicate that we should proceed slowly or stop to have our car looked through or whatever your little pea-brain wanted to do. You didn’t have to come over metaphorically swinging your dick around like you owned the road. It didn’t make you look like a man; it made you look like an unstable cop. I hope you don’t have children because I would fear for their safety and sanity.

Could you imagine if his kid broke a toy or something?: “You broke your TOY?! I almost DIED! How could you be so CARELESS AND RECKLESS?! If you don’t like the way I’m addressing you, why don’t you go talk to your mother!? I DARE YOU.”

Plus, I don’t want any more assholes like him populating the planet.

The world would be 150% more enjoyable, at least, if people bit their tongues in public even half as often as I do. Most the problems in the world are caused by people overreacting and not stopping to think for ten seconds. This cop, for example, could have been a lot more polite and still gotten his point across and would not have looked like a crazy asshole. And he could have meandered back over to his buddy after we drove off and ranted about us. Like how I managed not to call him a fuckwad to his face but instead came to my blog to do it. See how that works?

That’s right! The Anger Ball is packing up and moving this weekend, so I’ll be MIA Friday and possibly Monday too. But don’t you worry, dear readers. I will return with plenty of rage. People everywhere do stupid things all the time, and I will be around to rant about it. Even if I won’t be living in the thick of idiocy anymore, I’ve got enough anger saved up from years gone by that this blog will never run dry.